Episode 3: NBA Top 10 and Klutch Sports

to do a little bit more of an intro every time. Um. For now, I'm just calling it the Jason timp Podcast. For those of you don't know me, I'm mostly covering the Lakers, but I do all things n b A. I am a basketball fan first and foremost, and uh I have my background is that I play basketball in college, and uh I have a little bit of experience with

the pro scene. And at this point, I'm just a guy like you guys who's a big fan of the game, a big fan of basketball first and foremost, and and I'm the guy who enjoys diving as deep into it as all of you guys do. So today I'm gonna be primarily focusing on the top ten players in the NBA as I see it as of right now. UM. Obviously it's just my opinion and it's just a sports take. There's absolutely no reason to get upset about it. If you disagree with me, I'd love to go back and

forth with you about it. UM. The other thing I'm gonna touch on today is this article that The Athletic released where UM, an anonymous agent, basically ripped Clutch Sports a new one and primarily focused on how unfair everything that they do is, how they've been taking advantage of clients, how there have been a lot of clients who have lost millions of dollars because of them, and just all in all was a a lengthy complaint fest from UH

from a competing agent. So I want to touch on that for just a second, and then we'll get to the top ten players in the league. So first and foremost, I think what people need to understand is there's a there there's two conflicting you know, UH factors to this case, which is first, first of all, the players absolutely have a you know, what should be considered their set of rights, you know, like the players are are, without a doubt,

the sole reason this industry exists. If we traded out the top four hundred and fifty basketball players in the world and made it the next four and fifty players in the world, none of you would watch because the product would be nowhere near as good. There there is a distinct reason why we watched the NBA, and it primarily starts with the players. So they absolutely have rights that we should understand and and we should be perpetually trying to make sure the players are treated fairly. That's

the first part of this. But the flip side of it is the NBA is a business which is designed

to maximize those players talents into revenue. There's a big reason why so many inventors in the world will sell their invention to a company or will allow themselves to be bought out early on, and it's because running a business is very, very hard, and even though you may be the guy with the idea or in this case, the player with the talent, you may not necessarily have the best strategy with which to monetize that idea or

to monetize that talent. And so there is an important conversation to be had about the health of the league and how important that is. And that's the one part of this that I think gets lost because without a doubt, Clutch Sports is doing it right. They are winning, and so no one should be criticizing Clutch Sports methods. I think Rich Paul is a damn good agent. Absolutely, Lebron

was his foot in the door. But if you have a problem with nepotism, I hate to tell you every single person in every single business in America benefits from some kind of either nepotism or privilege. It's just part of the business. Whether it's your natural talent, whether it's you come from money, whether it's race. There's all of these different elements that that vault people upward in the world. And so guess what, Rich Paul got his start through Lebron.

But he's also a damn good agent, and so that's the reason why he has been as successful as he has been. And the end of the day, like power, begets more power once it takes power to claim more power. And so you know, once Rich had the cloud that was brought to him by Lebron, it made it easier for him with his skill set to continue to grow

that power that he had within the league. That to me, though, is a separate issue from the fact that we should at least consider whether or not it's healthy for the

league for the players to have so much power. And I'm not talking about the principle of the matter, because the principle of the matter that players should be able to pick where they go makes perfect sense, and without a doubt, I agree with that principle, but there is a question as to whether or not players taking advantage of that principle could hurt the overall health of the league, which, again, the health of the league itself is the vehicle with

which these players monetize their talent. That's how they get paid. And if the purpose of doing this is to get paid, then I think players would be more willing to at least confront the idea that that sometimes the league's rights or the health of the league can take priority over their rights if it ends up leading to them making

more money. And so the reason why I bring that up is, you know, with exception of World Series games and specific for chises like the Yankees or the Dodgers or the Red Sox, you know, most nationally televised Major League Baseball games, no one watches like. They get extremely low ratings, particularly in the regular season, because there's absolutely no uh intrigue to the individual baseball game, if anything,

gets more of an impart type of experience. And if they're they're like, you could be watching your favorite team in in in May and they could get their ass kicked twelve to two and you literally won't care because the games just don't carry enough meeting. But Major League Baseball has always generated more revenue then the then the NBA, and that is strictly because of their regional TV rights.

The Fox Sports Arizona where I grew up, where we watched the d Backs, you know, whether it's you know, uh, you know, the Spectrum Sports Nets I think I think has the Dodgers in l A whoever it is, or the y S Network in New York, those companies because they have because baseball is followed so religiously on a local level, Major League Baseball has been able to make more money than the NBA makes despite not necessarily having

the national following. Although they do have a tendency to hit, you know, with specific teams in the World Series, to hit massive numbers, and so that is driven from fierce

loyalty two teams on a local level. And I'm not saying that, you know, an over extension of player empowerment will hurt that, I'm saying I don't know, And I'm saying I'm interested to see ten years from now, twenty years from now, if an overdependence on player empowerment could in some way potentially hurt the local fan bases that will inevitably be a cash cow for the league in years moving forward. And so from that standpoint, like all

I'm saying is we should fiercely defend Clutch. We should absolutely point and out that this other agent is as

effectively a sore loser. But we should also, you know, have a conversation about what the NBA needs to look like to be the healthiest version of itself so that they make the most money later on, because that is where it will inevitably trickle down to the players, because they're on a revenue split, they will get half of every dollar the league makes and that and that's where that's the one side of this that I think is

getting ignored, and I hope people will understand. On that note, I want to get started with the uh the top ten players in the league. I'm gonna be going down from ten to one, and with each guy, I'll kind of explain why I have one player over the next. I do want to make one change because in two podcasts ago, when I did the honorable mention from fifteen to ten, I gave the ten spot to Jayson Tatum,

and I want to change my mind on that. I've been thinking about it a lot as all this stupid drama has been going on with me apparently being the only guy in the world who's not willing to, you know, like completely lose their mind over Jimmy Butler's NBA Finals performance. You know, I've been thinking a lot about it, and I would like to put Dame in that number ten spot.

The main reason why is I believe that as an offensive player, he's so far superior to the two of them, and I value that more so um as a starting point for this top ten, I have three things that

I've consistently valued in basketball. These are the three things that I believe matter the most in playing championship basketball, and its defensive versatility, isolation scoring, elite isolation scoring against elite defenses, and last, but not least, elite high end playmaking, so the ability to consistently find holes and defenses that don't often have holes. And so as I'm going through this list, you'll see me place priority on those specific things.

So the reason why I gave the ten spot to Dame is because of the fact that I view that the the honor of being referred to as a ten a top ten player in the NBA to be very significant, and I believe he's earned the right to be in this spot. Dame, without a doubt, absolutely must be doubled everywhere on the court. If he's in pick and roll, you have to trap him because if you go over the top, he's going all the way to the basket. If you go under the screen, he's going to make

a three. If you let him work in isolation, he's going to either beat you to the basket if you play up on him, or he's going to hit a shot in your face if you play off of him. He is one of the few players in the league that you absolutely must double, and that's something that I don't think you can say about Tatum and Jimmy, And that's the reason why I put Dame above them in this particular spot. He has clear weaknesses. He's undersized, he's uh not a great defensive player by any stretch of

the imagination. In fact, he hurts his team on that end of the ball. But on the offensive end, he's so ridiculously good at warping defenses with his ridiculous efficiency jump shooting and his ability to score out the basket that you absolutely must double team him. Now. The reason why, and I've said this a million times, the reason why he's not Steph, the reason why he's ten and not five, despite being arguably one of the top tier offensive players in the league, is he gives up after he gets

off the ball. And if you can do what the Lakers did, which is get the ball out of Dame's hands, He's not going to remain a threat long enough to make your rotations tough enough to eventually break down your defense. You can make other players make plays off of him, and inevitably you can win in a playoff series by just getting the ball out of Dame's hands. And that's

the next step for him. We're gonna get to this a lot when I talk about step But Steph is so good and almost embracing the double team trying to get rid of the ball because he knows he's going to get it back, and he can remain engaged in the play, which completely butchers the rotations for the defense and keeps them in a scramble and makes it that much easier to generate quality looks not just for his teammates but for him as well. And that's where Dame

kind of has some limitations. But when I talk about those three things, the three things that I value the most, elite and elite isolation, offense, elite playmaking, and defensive versatility, Dame isn't is kind of weak in two of those three areas, and that's why I have them all the way down at ten and not further up the list.

So between ten and nine, I have a little bit of a gap because I think Dame and then the other guys from ten to eleven to fifteen or in the same tier that's Jimmy Butler, Joel Embiide, Jayson Tatum, Chris Paul, and Paul George are kind of all in that next tier. I think there's a little bit of a gap between Dame and the next guy on my list, which is Nicola Yokich. So, Nicola Yokits just came off one of the best upsets in NBA history, and he

is primarily responsible for what happened. He literally it wasn't a fluke either. The Clipper defense could not do anything with him. There was no adjustment they could make, there was no rotation they could figure out. There was no player they could play more of to inevitably stop Nicola Yokich. She solved their defense. And he is the first guy on this list, one of only four in the league in my opinion, between him, Luca, Chris Paul, and Lebron

who are elite high end playmakers. And I'm gonna get at this a couple more times in this list, So I think it's important to kind of understand. But the reason why I talked so much about elite high end playmaking is people don't understand what elite defense is. Elite defense is not I'm locking you up one on one. All of the best defenses in the league rely heavily on trapping, stunting, doubling, and all other sorts of schemes defensively to throw an offense out of rhythm. Think about

the best defenses from the last two years. You've got the Lakers this year, who consistently we're trapping and doubling and getting in rotations and uh and just kind of being on a string defensively, but they very rarely left guys in one on one situations. Look at the Raptors last year. They famously ran a box in one in the finals. The reality is is truly elite high end defenses are consistently going to double and trap and scheme and do various weird things to try to throw an

offense at a rhythm. So when you've got a player like Nicola Yokich, like Chris Paul, like Lebron, like Luca who's not just a good passer, because there's a huge difference between being a good passer and being that elite high end playmaker that the good. A good passer is a guy who sees an open man and who can off the dribble or or just quickly make a pass out to said open man so that he can make a shot. A playmaker is anticipating the move of a

defense and is actively looking to find those openings. And there's such a huge differ between the two of them because inevitably what you'll see with those elite, high end playmakers is they will find themselves in isolation situations because defenses will be terrified to double and terrified to help because of the fact that they know that person will

consistently make you pay for making that mistake. So when you've got a guy that when you're going against an elite defense that is going to stunt and double and trap, then that and that guy will consistently make you pay for it every single time. It It loosens up those truly elite defenses. And that's why that's such a valuable skill in in this NBA. I mean, look at the

uh the Golden State Warriors last year. That Toronto defense is frequently discussed as one of the best defenses ever, and the Warriors scored all kinds of points on them. They lost that series because they couldn't get stops. They did not have issues scoring against that Toronto defense, and it has to do with how they were able to

dissect that elite defense. That getting those elite defense is to loosen up and find the holes in him will always be, in my opinion, the most important skill in basketball, and Yokich is the first guy on this list to have that ability. In addition to that he is. He's not in that, you know, top tier or even that second tier of isolation scoring. But you saw him against Rudy Gobert, and against Anthony Davis, and really against any mismatch that he was able to find along the way.

If you let Yokis work one on one in the post, he was gonna get a good shot. I mean, he made a game winner in Game seven against Utah over Gobert, the shot before the crazy sequence that ended in the UH, the Donovan Mitchell turnover, the miss Jeremy Grant layup, and then the missed UH Mike Connolly three that started with Yokich bullying Gobert underneath the basket and making like a

scoop shot. He is an unbelievably talented isolation post scorer who also happens to be one of the best playmakers in the league. And so that's why I have him

at number ten. His biggest weaknesses and the reason why he's behind guys that are in one of him is even though he is a really good isolation score, every single person I had him on this list is better than him at that specific skill and then, uh, defensively, he still hasn't found that balance to where look like, you don't have to be an elite defensive player, but you have to get to a point where you're not

actively hurting your team. It wasn't too bad in the l A series because the l A spacing wasn't great, but the Clippers really victimized him and pick and roll because they had a little bit better spacing and they actually made Yokis look like he was hurting the team at times on the defensive end of the ball. So number eight, this is gonna be my most controversial one. This is the one that's probably gonna get me yelled

at by some people. I have James Harden at eight. Yes, I have him behind Luca and Janice, and I believe this is the lowest that most people would rank him over the past few years. The reason why I have James Harden at eight is I believe that there is a clear cut, proven, strategic like strategic path to beating James Harden a playoff series. There is a consistent track record of teams employing the same method and it consistently

working on James Harden. And the reason why is because he is the most repetitive offensive player that we've seen in the league. He is a player that consistently will attack your defense exactly the same way, regardless of what you do. He has no versatility in his offensive game. It's something that I've talked about at length in the past.

He initiates everything from the top. He never initiates anything from from the corner, or from the post, or from the high post, or literally anywhere else on the floor. He doesn't do anything off the ball, He doesn't fly off of screens. He doesn't do anything to initiate his offense except for dribble the ball slowly up the court, either call for a screen or attack in isolation. And they've almost completely taken pick and roll out of his attack. He used to do a lot of pick and roll

with Clint Capella. Now he doesn't even do pick and roll. He asks for picks strictly to get switches so that he can go to an isolation attack. Now here's the thing.

If you're gonna let him do that, he can put up some efficient scoring numbers, but it doesn't factor in anything having to do with the rest of his team and the way that the impacts their rhythm and it doesn't effect, and it doesn't account for the fact, then inevitably, if you let one defender guard James Harden consistently, he's gonna find a way to inevitably slow him down and

make him less efficient. I've used this example before, but like if you if any of you guys played one on one with me and we were just at a park somewhere, chances are in the first fifty possessions I'm gonna have a better chance of scoring on you then I will in the next fifty possessions Because in the first fifty possessions, you don't know my moves, you don't know my tendencies, you don't really know what to expect.

But if I'm just attacking you from the top of the key and like again and again and again, eventually you're gonna be like, oh, well, you know, if he gets into triple threat, the first thing he's gonna do is do a jab step, and he's probably gonna try

to get to his jump shot first. And then he if he gets his back to the basket he likes to do turnaround over his right shoulder every time, or one leg it fade away or whatever it is and you're just gonna start to sit it on those moves, and you'll start to have more success against my isolation attack as you see it more and more, and because there's no versatility or no variety to the way that he's attacking you in isolation, you can see gifted isolation

defenders start to wear on James Harden and start to get stops at the end of games and at the end of series, and then even a step further than that when he is having a lot of success in isolation. Double teaming James Harden is a lot easier than it is double teaming any other player in the league because of the fact that he will back away to half court and that double team always takes place in the

same spot on the floor. The reason why it's so hard to double team Lebron is because if he's he's Sometimes he attacks from the high from the high post, sometimes he attacks from the low post. Sometimes he attacks off the cut, sometimes he attacks dribbling the ball at the floor in isolation. Sometimes he attacks and pick and roll,

sometimes he attacks with a triple threat. He's literally coming at you in every single conceivable way, and so each double team presents a different rotation, and so he can get you into his scramble and make you pay a lot easier. With James Harden, it's almost like it's almost like running a drill. It's like you're prepping to guard

James Harden. Okay, we're gonna double him as soon as he crosses half court kind of on the right wing, which is where you are, left wing, which is where he always brings the ball up the floor, So we know that they're gonna have a shooter in each corner. They're gonna have a guy on the right wing, and they're gonna have a guy that's gonna come up to try to set the screen on on James Harden, who's

gonna kind of drop and do a short roll. So when they're when the double team comes, he's going to consistently make the past to where the double team is coming from, and the defense can effectively say, we're going to do the exact same rotation every single time, and so over the course of the game, you get really good at double teaming James Harden because you know exactly where to go, You know exactly if you're rotating, you know exactly where your next rotation is and inevitably you're

gonna get to the point where there's no open shot. And the Lakers absolutely mastered this. The Lakers had it to the point where double teaming James Harden was still leading to contested shots, which is which is not the Lakers fault. That is literally James Harden making himself easy to defend and a big part of that, and you

saw this with Rondo. Rondo would be the guy to come over and set that initial double on James Harden to get him to give up the ball, and then as soon as James Harden would pick up his dribble, Rondo would sprint into rotation. He would immediately leave James get out on the run and get into that get

into his next step in the rotation. And so it got to the point where teams were having a lot of success guarding him in single coverage and in double team coverage, and so, like I said, there's a proven method to guarding James Harden, and that proven method is if you have him in isolation, just put your best

defender on him. Even if he scores a bunch early, he's inevitably gonna, inevitably gonna find a way to score late, and then if you get him into double teams, he's going to consistently walk into the double team in the same spot of the floor and then back away from the play, and your team will inevitably figure out the rotation over time and find out how to slow him down. Now, Luca is next, and Luca is also a repetitive basketball player.

But there's a distinct reason why Luca is better than James Harden, and that is he is the next guy in that list of truly elite playmakers, guys who are seeing one step ahead of the defense, and guys who are actively warping defenses with their mind, so to speak. So, James Harden is a great passer, and he has always put up great passing numbers. But James Harden is a textbook reactionary passer as opposed to an anticipatory passer. James Harden wants to shoot, and if you make him pass it,

he will pass it. But Luca wants to get a basket. That's all he cares about, and he doesn't care if he doesn't shoot for six straight minutes. If the defense is giving up open looks for his teammates, he will consistently make those reads, because all he's doing is reading defenses, and that is leading to him shooting sometimes and passing sometimes. But he's always one step of the game, that's one step ahead of the defense with his mind, and he is a willing passer in a way that James Harden

is not. And so at this point, Luca and Harden both present similar conundrums of repetitiveness with their offense. Over the course of a game. You're gonna have some success guarding them in isolation, but Luca is going to have a better time if you throw schemes at him. If lucas making shots and you start doubling him, Doubling Luca is a suicide mission. He's the best player in the league not named Lebron at reading defenses when they make those sorts of you know, schematic attempts to try to

get him out of his game. And so yeah, from that standpoint, I've got Luca one step ahead of hard and strictly based on his playmaking ability, and I have him at number seven. Luca's biggest problem is the Luca's next step, the step to becoming like from not instead of seven in the top two were three in the league, is one, making himself a net negative or a net zero on defense, He's never gonna be an elite defensive player.

But if he can get to the point where he's like Steph Curry, great positional defender, good using his hands, gets to the point where he's never actively hurting his team on defense, and then secondly, just improving as a jump shooter, getting to the point where instead of a thirty one guy from three, he's more like James Harden, a guy who can make him at about thirty six thirty seven percent from three. Number six. This is one that we talked about a lot today on Twitter. Is Janice.

You know Janice I had going into the last season. I had him at number five. And the reason why I had him at five and not closer to the top is I was always a firm believer in the fact that his offensive skill set was like absolutely uh bounds to be eventually slowed down by elite playoff defenses because he didn't have enough versatility on the offensive end of the floor. And not only was I right about that, I ended up being almost too right about that because he got he lost to a team that he had

no business losing to. This year and that was Miami I had expect I expected them to make the finals and end up losing to the Lakers. Um that the reason why I have Jhannice ahead of the previous four guys who are all better offensive players. Dame, uh Yokich, Harden,

and Luca are all better offensive players than Janice. The reason why I have Jhannice at six instead of beneath that is the fact that Janice is one of two guys in the league, him and Anthony Davis, who are capable of what Anthony Davis did this year defensively, which is being just an absolute wrecking ball on from all five positions. Can't scheme him off the floor like a Rudy Gobert. Just absolute wrecking ball of a defensive player.

That's what Janice is. Janice, if he was he, I have Anthony Davis ahead of him, and I'll explain why later. But if you slid him into that Laker defense in the exact same role that Anthony Davis field, he could have done what Anthony Davis did on the defensive end of the ball, and that's why I have him above those other guys. The problem with your honest is similar

to James Harden. He has a proven method with which you can slow him down if you build, if you get back in transition, and you build a wall to shut off the basket. He's not a good enough passer to generate high enough quality looks to make you pay. And he's not a versatile enough offensive player to score with players in front of him and to score over the top of people. And that's where he can have. Uh that's his biggest shortcoming. You'll notice this as we

get into the later players on this list. But Janice, when he gets schemed out of a playoff series the way he did against both of these, against Miami and against Toronto, not only is he ineffective, he's bad and effective, like way below what you would expect from what his regular season production is. He was a twenty three point a game guy against Toronto in last year's playoffs, and if I'm not mistaken, he was even below that this year.

Un terrible efficiency. So from that standpoint, it's not he is. When he faces an elite defense with an elite coach who's gonna make him counter and do something other than bowl his way to the basket, he doesn't have anything

that he can go to. Now, I've heard a lot of talk this is this is one area I'm gonna defend your honest and I'm gonna I've heard a lot of talk about how people think that he should kind of be retooled into a center, that he's miscast as a perimeter initiator, and I actually disagree with that, because you, honest can dribble, and you know, I do believe that the ability to bring the ball up the floor and initiative offense herself makes it a lot harder to scheme

against you, because you can't trapping a guy like that in the open court as a recipe for disaster, because if he happens to get around the trap, you've got a huge advantage bowling to the basket like a five on three. But Janice certainly has to get better in order for that to inevitably work. And I don't think Bud or the Bucks front office, or anybody involved in an organization will try to retool him into a center.

I think that would be a huge mistake because I think his ceiling is a lot higher as a perimeter initiator. If he is retooled into a center, his peak is

much lower. His ceiling is lowered to the fourth or fifth best player in the league, basically Anthony Davis type of player, as opposed to if he remains committed to this role as a perimeter initiator, but gets better at reading defenses, gets better as a passer, gets better at scoring over the top of people, he will have a ceiling of as the first or second best player of the league, which I think is the smarter gamble for Milwaukee or whatever franchise ends up getting honest in the

long run. But I think he's definitively behind everybody else on this list strictly because of the fact that, as of this moment in time, he's too easy to slow down offensively in a playoff series. Alright. Number five Kevin Durant, So, Kevin Durant is the best scorer in basketball, the best isolation scorer in basketball, and in my and he has a legitimate case to be the best isolation score Ever, I personally wouldn't pick him. I think I'd take one

or two guys ahead of him in that regard. But he has a case for being that guy, the guy, the guy that you'd pick in a game of one on one over any player in NBA histories, Kevin Durant potentially and certainly in today's NBA, and I'm not worried about his Achilles injury. I think without a doubt he will be um the vast majority of his former self coming into this next season. Now, like I said before, isolation scoring is one of the three most important skills

that I value as an NBA fan. But Kevin Durant has huge weaknesses in the other two areas, and that's why I have him at five and not significantly higher up on this list. Similar to James Harden, he is a gifted passer who is not a willing passer. He passes out of necessity and he doesn't pacitate. He doesn't pass anticipating what the defense is doing. So that's that's

his first weakness. And then secondly, and I've I've said this at length, I believe that Kevin Durant, had he embraced the defensive end of the ball from the start of his career, could have been a Mount Rushmore type of NBA player. He could have been a guy that

we consider the way that we consider Lebron. But the problem is he only embraced that side of the ball for a year and a half in his career, the second half of two thousand sixteen, right around the Thunder actually struggling, you know, a few games after the All Star break, they were a middling team, you know, in the standings, and they really took off at the end of that year when Kevin Durant embraced the defensive end

of the ball, particularly as a rim protector. You have to remember, Kevin Durant has the defensive skill set of a guy like Anthony Davis. He's absolutely huge and long, and he's incredibly quick. He could be that guy. He

just has never cared to be that guy. And then when he went into the Warriors in two thousand and seventeen, from start to finish, he was an all defense level player and that he didn't get an All Defensive selection that year, but he deserved one in my opinion, and I think it was because he got into that Golden State culture, and the Golden State culture was predicated on defense.

I know they have a lot of players who aren't necessarily known for defense, but that Golden State team was a perennial defensive jugger, not in the previous years, and Kevin Durant kind of got swept up in that culture and unleashed an unbelievable defensive season in two thousand seventeen, but then in two thousand eighteen went right back to his old self, a guy who couldn't really care uh

to be engaged on that end. You know, a guy who stands upright constantly is reaching in somebody who doesn't use his physical tools to to imprint the game on the defensive end of the ball. Uh. But again, he is the best isolation scorer we have in the game. I think that gives him a leg up on all the previous players on this list. I feel very confident that he's going to be most of himself coming into

this season. But his inability to really embrace that, you know, passing, the the inability to embrace playmaking, in his inability to embrace his physical tools as a defender, I think are what have held him back. The best example I can think of that is the two thousand and nineteen Warriors. So, you know, six games or what is it, ten games into the two thousand nineteen playoffs, Kevin Durant looks like

the best player in the world. There's absolutely nobody that can guard him, and he's absolutely toying with l a Clipper defenders and toying with all of the Houston Rocket defenders and scoring at a ridiculous efficiency and just just looks like the best player in the world. But the Warriors were six and four in those games. They got taken to six by the Clippers, and when he went

down against Houston, the series was to two. And then immediately after he leaves, Steph takes over the offense percent of the time and they rank They rack up six consecutive wins. They beat Houston in games five and six, and then they beat the hell out of Portland's four straight times. And I think there's a distinct reason why that happened, and it's the fact that isolation offense. While it is one of the most important skills in all of basketball, it is just one element to running a

successful offense. It is an element of versatility, is an element of variety. It is what makes you impossible to defend as part of a total package of an offense. But without a doubt, if you lean entirely on it, it comes with huge downsides. It messes with the rhythm of your team, It messes with defensive focus, because when you watch a guy isolate every time, it's hard to

stay mentally engaged on either end of the floor. And as you saw with that Golden State offense, they were far more you know, they were far more free flowing and and far more they had a better rhythm when they were running through Steph because Steph's offensive style was more predicated on keeping everybody involved, bad movement, him scoring within without the basketball, and a lot more variety, and

it led to their success. Now, Kevin Durant's isolation basketball made them unbeatable, especially in two thousand seventeen and two thousand eighteen, because when you were able to slow down the Steph Curry machine, Kevin Durant was there to be that ace in the hole, that unbelievable, you know, trump

card of versatility to beat those elite defenses. But as you saw in that two thousand nineteen playoff run when they would get and even in two thousand eighteen in the first five games against against Houston, when when they would go too heavy leaning on Kevin Durant and isolation, it actually had a tendency to hurt their offense. And I think that's a basketball ideology for Kevin Durant that is actually a weakness of his. You know, I even

I heard him in a podcast. Uh I can't remember who he was with, but it might have been CAM with the Elite Media group, but he said basically like I'm you know. You know that they asked him like, hey, what are you working on and your you know, time off, and He's like, you know, I'm just working one on once. You know, I'm all in on this isolation thing. And you know, I think Kevin Durant's unwavering faith in isolation basketball has actually kind of turned out to be a

bit of a weakness for him over the years. And uh, you know that that's one of the big reasons why I have him beneath players that are in front of him on this list. So number four was a hard one for me because coming into this process, I thought he had a case to be number two. But I have Anthony Davis at number four, and I know that's low and I know Laker fans are going to be super thrilled with that decision. But the main reason, I'll

start with the bad. The main reason why I have Anthony Davis at four instead of higher on the list is I thought that Eric Spoelstra was able to relatively easily scheme him out of the finals. Not you know, entirely, because he's a top five player, so he's never gonna be the kind of guy you can entirely scheme out of series. But I thought that they were able to scheme him out of the series in terms of the way that they were able to guard him in isolation.

I think Anthony Davis averaged twenty six points per game on pretty darn good efficiency in the Finals, but most the vast majority of his baskets came jump shooting and then out of the dunker spot, and as an offensive rebounder, they had a very clear defensive strategy of putting a wing on him instead of Bam, who was extremely strong and athletic and quick, that would get underneath him and then they would pack the paint, which took away almost

all of Anthony Davis's to the basket isolation moves. And that's a big part of the real That's a big reason why Anthony Davis was mostly schemed out of that series as an isolation scorer is he was forced to rely on taking and making tough contested you know, long

jump shots, particularly from two point range. Now, the reason why he's number four is even though he was just like distinctly schemed out of the series as a driving, offensive post up player, he still had twenty six points on super good efficiency because if you left him open,

he was making the jump shots. And he was so dominant as a dunker, especially within their zones, working as a you know, a catching dunk player in the dunks in the dunker spot, and then also as an offensive rebounder when he would really you know, bull especially when they would go super small and they'd have Andrea Guddala on him and Bam would be off the floor. Anthony

Davis killed Miami as an offensive rebounder. And those are the those are the elements to his offensive game that made him better than Janice, because you know, Miami schemed be honest out of the series and Janice was mostly ineffectual, whereas Miami scheme to Anthony Davis out of the series. And he still got his twenty six by scoring in the limited areas where Miami kind of allowed him to operate.

And that's why I have him above Janice, and that's why I have him above k d or I should say, the reason why I have him above k d is, in addition to his dominant offensive play, ain't nie. Davis arguably just had the most dominant defensive postseason we've ever seen. Arguably. I've heard some people bring up two thousand three Tim Duncan. I'm sure you could, you know, find some examples from

Bill Russell's career. I tend to separate that era entirely from this because it doesn't really resemble this kind of basketball. But in my opinion, Anthony Davis just had one of the best, if not the best defensive postseasons in league history. He was the cornerstone of that Laker defense that I thought was the best defense in the league, and I think that that is a major differentiator between him and some of the players behind him that are better offensive players.

Now at number three, I have Kauai, and the reason why I went with Kauai over Anthony Davis is Kauai is also one of the best defensive players in the league. He's not as good as Anthony Davis. I think if you're putting in tears of defensive players, you're gonna put Anthony Davis and Janice and Tier one, and I think you're gonna put Kauai right there in tier two. And from that regard, as I'm counting those three things, the elite defensive versatility, Kauai is one of the very best

players in the league at that. And then Kauai is also one of the best isolation scorers in the league. I have him as the second best isolation scorer in the league, behind Kevin Durant. He's become such a gifted mid range score and that's a shot that almost every defense in the league gives up. It was the hole in the Laker defense. The entire Laker defense was predicated on shutting off the rim, shutting off the three point line.

And it's what made the Clippers so dangerous to the Lakers is that Kauai was so gifted at scoring in that mid range area. But Kauai made himself such a gifted mid range scorer that he was actually, in my opinion, just a shade below Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant is a clearly better score in my opinion, but it's clearly by a somewhat smaller margin. And he's so much stronger than than Kevin Durant that he's capable of kind of bullying

his way to get closer shots at the basket. He, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated scorers in the league because it can get ugly sometimes and he takes shots that are notoriously inefficient, but he's got a scoring method that has proven to succeed at the highest levels. Now, the reasons why, the reason why he's three, and the reason why he gave up his proverbial number one spot last year, and the reason why he fell apart in that series against Denver was that Kauai lacks

offensive versatility passed his isolation scoring. And it's not just about his you know, uh playmaking, because it's not just that he's not an elite playmaker. He's a below average passer, Like he's not even on the same level as a James Harden or Kevin Durant as a passer. And so from that regard, if you look at game seven, which is my favorite example of a bad Kauai game, you know, he goes I think you know six from twenty two or whatever it was that he was for four teen points.

He when his shot wasn't falling, he had almost no impact on the offensive end of the ball, almost no impact whatsoever, and as a result, his team fell apart at the seams. And even though he was able to generate quality shots, It's not like I was taking bad shots. It's not like Denver was completely locking him up. It's just that, guess what, Sometimes guys miss shots, and you have to have a counter, You have to have something

you can do when that's not working. And that's what definitively puts him below Stephan Lebron, the next two guys on my list. If I told you tomorrow that you're that you were gonna watch a Warrior game or you were gonna watch a Laker game, and if it was a Warrior game, I told you, hey, guess what, Steph's not gonna shoot well. Or if it was a Laker game and I said, hey, guess what, Lebron's not gonna shoot well. Like you know, STEP's gonna go for for

twenty or Lebron's gonna go six for twenty. I still feel confident and you should too, that either of those players could still be the best player on the floor in that situation and in all likelihoods still win because historically, in Steph's career, despite shooting poorly, he wore defense is so much with his ability to draw attention even when he's like Steph is the guy that could go over nine from three and the defense is still psychotically chasing

him around the floor. And Lebron is that guy that can be missing his jump shots, but he's so physically powerful around the rim that he's still gonna make six or seven or eight fuel goals. And he's such a gifted passer that he's going to have an impact on the game, warping defenses with his playmaking that he can have a game where you know how many Lebron has so many games in his career where he cannot make a jump shot and he's still the best player on

the floor. It's unbelievable. And Steph Curry the exact same thing, whereas with Kauai, you have Game seven against Denver where it's like, oh my god, he can't make a three, Oh my god, he can't make his turnaround fade away jump shots in the post, and he just can't do anything on offense, and now the wheels are coming off. And that's the key difference between the top tier players and Kawhi Leonard is that versatility on offense, the ability

to impact games when their shots aren't falling. So number two, I have Steph, and I think the most important thing to understand here is, you know, Steph is not that elite high end playmaker that Lebron and Yokich and Luca and CP three are. But what he is is he's the best off ball player in the league. And because you have to double team him all the time, and he can if he sprints to the corner, teams will double team him without the ball, which is unlike anything

you see from any other player in the league. That is his version of elite high end playmaking. His gravity, which I've made fun of over the years because it's kind of been used as, you know, a differentiator, which it is, but there are other players that have varying forms of gravity. But Steph's gravity and his ability to draw defensive attention off the ball even when he's not making shots is his version of elite high end playmaking. Because the whole purpose of elite high end play making

is to generate quality looks. If you're Lebron, you're trusting that k CP Rondo, Danny Green, you know, Anthony Davis if you leave them open that over the course of a seven game series, they're gonna make enough shots to win. Right, And he does it with his passing. Steph Curry does

it with his gravity. So the point is is like Steph is basically saying, if I stay engaged off the ball, if I constantly stay on the move and I constantly stay a threat even if I'm not shooting well, my teammates are gonna get such high quality looks that over the course of a seven game series, they're gonna make enough shots to win. And that's that key differentiator for him.

So he and he has made himself, to his credit, an average to slightly above average defensive player through positional awareness, being in the right space of place at the right time, always playing his role within the scheme. And then he also has an underrated size, like for a for a guy who's a small guard, you know by a reputation, he's six ft three and he's reasonably strong that you can't just completely bully him to the basket every time.

He's not an elite defensive player, and that's the reason why I have Lebron above him, But he does bring enough on that end to make him like distinctly above the players beneath him, like Luca, like Kevin Durant, like like Nicola Yokichen, like Dame Lillard, that he that he's not a total negative net negative on that side of the floor. Now Lebron Lebron, in my opinion, has separated himself as the only guy on the first tier of

basketball players. Going into this last season, I had him in the same tier as Steph Kauai and Kdi and now I have him in a tier by himself. And the reason why if one of you disagree, I'd be happy to hear it. He is the only player in the top ten players list that I just mentioned who is an absolute monster in all three of those categories that I mentioned. He is absolutely defensively versatile when he's engaged.

He's one of the top ten defenders in the league still to this day he's about to turn thirty six years old. He can guard every single position you can put him in any defensive scheme, and he is capable of impacting a game on the defensive end of the floor with the best players in the league. He put on an unbelievable shot blocking clinic in this postseason, not in terms of numbers, but just in crazy rescue plays.

He's a great back line defender protecting the rim. He's very he's still very latter, really quick, and can guard on the perimeter. He can guard in the post. He is incredibly defensively versatile. Then, as I just said about everybody else, about Luca and about your kitchen, about CP three, he is the very best elite high end playmaker in the league. He is the best player in the league in my opinion, at consistently making defensive defenses pay for

for doubling or for shading in his direction. One of my favorite players in Lebron's career was in the two thousand seventeen first round series against Indiana. It's Game three.

Indiana gets out to huge first half lead and Lebron leads a massive comeback in the second half while Kyrie and Kevin Lover actually on the bench, and there's a sequence where Paul George is trying to score on Himan Chumpert from the from the free throw line, and he's kind of got his back turned to him and he does like a dribble and tries to do a pull up Aimon Chumppert strips him and on the play he kicks it ahead to Lebron and George Hill is standing

between Monte Ellis, excuse me, is standing between Lebron and the rim, and Lebron is freight train to the basket going for a dunk and kauai uh and uh. Kyle Korver's running along the right wing, and Monte Ellis literally abandons the paint to sprint out to the three point line to guard Kyle Korver and he doesn't even have the ball. Lebron has the ball, so you can guess.

Lebron goes down the lane and throws down a ridiculous tomahawk dunk, and I believe it was the lead changing shot, the one that put the Calves in the lead for good from that point forward. And that is the embodiment of the Lebron James gravity effect for him, you know, for Steff, it's the gravity that players will sprint to

guard staff even though he doesn't have the ball. And for Lebron, it's defenders will sprint to guard shooters that don't have the ball because they're terrified that Lebron will pass to them, and that that is what separates him from every single passer in the league is he is so consistently committed to making the right read into making defenses pay for helping that he will cause defenses to literally refuse to double team him and to sprint out to shooters that don't even have the ball, and to

constantly be looking behind their head to see who might be open because they think Lebron might pass it to them. And that's what separates him in that area. And then, last, but not least, Lebron is not the best scorer in the league, but he's in that tier. He is. I mean, once again, another postseason run where he's twenty eight points again game um, like fifty six percent shooting and like

thirty eight from three. And you can't leave him on an island in isolation because he'll bully you on the post. If you go underneath screens, he can hurt you by making enough threes over the top. He can score in the high post, he can score in the low post, he can score in transition, he can score and semi transition. He can score in every conceivable way, and he attacks you from all these different places on the floor. So there is not a single player on that list that

I mentioned that can say all three things. That they are elite defensive versus defensively versatile players, that they are elite isolation scorers, and that they are elite high end playmakers.

And Lebron's ability to check all three of those boxes is what makes him the hardest player in NBA history, in my opinion, to beat four times, because he's so versatile and he can beat you in so many different ways, and that is the reason why he is, in my opinion, separated himself from the rest of the league right now and has put himself in a year by himself. He's the only guy on that list who can do all

three of those things at an extremely high level. So um instimmation one Lebron to Steph three, Kauai four, a D five, Kevin Durant sixty, Honest seven, Luca eight, James Harden nine, Nicola Yokich ten, Damian Lillard. So um, Like I said, this is a this is a horse race. It's constantly moving, it's effectively frozen until basketball starts, which I guess is gonna be on Martin Luther King Day, so middle of January, so less than three months from now.

And uh, you know, I always think we should react to new information, but this is where I stand right now, and if I'm picking, you know, players with which to try to win a championship, this is the order in which I would pick them. Alrighty, I'm gonna take a quick pick to see if we have any questions. Here a lot of stuff about Kevin Duran's defense logan. Thank you for the kind words, man, I really appreciate it.

I obsessed about it as all crazy basketball fans do. UM. Alright, so I don't see any questions as of right now, so I think I'm gonna call it a day. But again, thank you guys so much for tuning in. UM. You know, I noticed that a bunch of you have taken the time to review my podcast or to rate my podcast, and I really appreciate that. UM, for those of you who have been listening, if you would take the time to write a review, it would mean a lot to me on a personal level. UM. Like I said, this

is fun. This is already the third episode, not even counting all the live episodes that we've done in the past. So I just want to say, um, thank you again to you guys. I hope you guys understand how much I appreciate you. And my next step is going to be to have Tommy Hop on the podcast to argue with me about this list, to argue with me about what I said about Lebron James the other day, and just to have a good back and forth debate because he's usually a guy who disagrees with me on stuff.

I have to figure out some logistics stuff about how I'm going to get that to work with the recording, but I should be able to figure it out with all the information that's online. But again, you guys, have a good rest to your night, and I'll see you guys later this week or early next week.